When I first came to the United States to pursue my career in entertainment, it seemed antisemitism—at least of the old-world variety—was very much a thing of the past, if it had ever been here at all. The Constitution protected religious freedom, all professions welcomed Jews, there were no longer restrictive housing covenants or university quotas against us, and in short, we generally felt accepted as human beings.
That this was rather exceptional at the global level was well understood in my native Israel, most of whose inhabitants spent the Diaspora in countries whose long persecution culminated in either industrialized genocide (Europe), mass expulsion (the Arab countries and Iran), or violent suppression of our faith (the Soviet Union).
Sadly, ugly antisemitism of the old-school variety never died out in some of these places, like the Arab world. Some governments in the Arab world provide a stamp of legitimacy for hateful antisemitic books of the absolute worst kind, including Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the Tsarist forgery “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” by offering those and similar books at the vast majority of state-run book fairs. In Russia in 2005, 20 members of the Duma (legislative assembly) accused the Jewish community of ritual murders of non-Jewish babies in a Medieval-style blood libel and demanded that the government ban all Jewish organizations in the country.
The Rise of Online Antisemitism
Sometime in the mid-2010s, antisemitism exploded on social media, as these networks assumed a more dominant position in our personal lives and drove the polarization of our current politics. In 2024, antisemitism in the United States is at its highest point on record. The American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) State of Antisemitism in America 2023 Report found that “antisemitism online and on social media continues to be the place where American Jews experience antisemitism the most,” with 62 percent of respondents seeing or hearing antisemitism online or on social media in the past 12 months.
There are many reasons for this phenomenon. Social media often grants anonymity to its users, perfect for “trolling.” The social network effect is ideal for the loosely organized but widespread white nationalist haters. And many of these attacks come from bots rather than human-controlled accounts.
There is another factor at work, too: Modern social networks are generally global, unlike early social networks with gatekeeping functions—like Facebook, which initially provided access only to those with university email addresses.
In effect, millions living in countries where antisemitic assumptions are the default and even taught in public education are now interacting with American and Western publics directly. Surveys by the AJC and Pew Research Center show that “negative attitudes toward Jews are the norm rather than the exception in many Muslim countries [with the] vast majority of people in Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan attesting to having a “very unfavorable view” of Jews.” This is the context for the rise of the “Malaysian Troll Army” in 2021 when hundreds of thousands of anti-Israel activists in Malaysia conducted a cyber-bullying and hacking campaign on behalf of Hamas.
After the Hamas massacre of over 1,200 innocents in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) detected a surging increase of up to 500 percent in the volume of online antisemitism. These have included death threats, like Cornell University student Patrick Dai’s threat to shoot Jews on campus, and sexually explicit messages used to harass Jewish social media users, especially women and girls.
What Social Media Corporations Must Do
One critical necessity for today’s social media ecosystem is real moderation, demanding algorithm transparency and enforcing swift removal of hate speech. A European Union report showed that hate speech is rising on social media platforms, even though their parent companies claim to be addressing it. Chinese-owned TikTok, in particular, has been a primary vector for the spread of antisemitic ideas and content.
Not only do companies lose advertisers when they fail to moderate, but they may face legal consequences: any company operating in the European Union is bound by the strict content moderation rules of its Digital Services Act. Social media companies should act now—or be pressured to enact changes necessary to protect the vulnerable in society, whom a reckless failure to moderate threatens.
- Increased Investment in Moderation Technologies: Social media companies should be encouraged or required to invest in advanced content moderation technologies that can more effectively identify and remove antisemitic content. There will be an arms race against trolls and other bad actors, including hostile states, with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), and our social media infrastructure must get the basics right now. AI also poses emerging threats, such as “deepfake” videos and phone calls, with a fake call from ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt being reported late last year promoting the work of an antisemitic hate group.
- Adopting a Standardized Definition of Antisemitism: Social media platforms should adopt and apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism as part of their content moderation policies. This is the gold-standard definition adopted by the U.S. State Department and most other major democracies.
- Human Moderators with Cultural Competence: Alongside technological solutions, platforms need to employ trained human moderators to understand the nuances of antisemitism and other forms of hate speech.
- Reporting Mechanisms: Social media platforms must ensure they have accessible and effective mechanisms for users to report antisemitic content and harassment. Victims should receive timely responses and support.